I am caught in this cycle of speed. It's like riding a merry-go-round at full speed and simultaneously wanting to step off and stay on.

I've been spending a lot of time thinking about what my preconcieved notions of grown up life were as a child and teen.

I've thought long and hard and I honestly can't remember. This could be attributed to the fact that I don't remember much before age 8 or 9, other than specific memories. Or it could be because I never was a long term planner.

I tossed around vocations all the time, mainly because teachers or my parents provoked me to commit to a field.

"What do you want to be when you grow up?"

How many of those essays did write? I don't have enough fingers to count on.

For most of life, you coast, because your course is mapped out for you. Grade school, high school, college or vocational facility. And then you complete that final step and suddenly, you are working with a script with no ending. There's a beginning and then blank page after blank page.

Along the way you make mistakes and as you take each step forward, you think, okay it's all going to fall into place now. And it doesn't.

Why is that? Why don't my cards fall neatly into place? What am I doing that deviates from what my friends are doing? Who am I that is so different from them?

I look the same. I have 10 fingers and 10 toes and a college diploma and a driver's license.

And yet here I am. Alone. So consumed with work that I don't have time to pursue my personal goals. My proverbial desk and financial insecurity crippling me from running after my dreams.

My parents celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary this weekend.

That's a big fucking deal. It's just starting to sink for me, how big of a deal that is.

Toiling away for The Man doesn't seem that big of a deal. Forty years for a company these days and what do you get? A pink slip? A watch? Profit sharing?

You can't go for ice cream after dinner with a profit sharing plan.

And what's the alternative? A lover, a bastard child, a pet, a plant? It all seems so transparent to me. So contrived. Being 60 and introducing my "boyfriend." Being an unmarried mother and bringing my child to a recital or birthday party, to supervise with the married couples. Me and my pet on the cover of a Christmas card? I hate pets. I do. Sue me.

I don't know. I'm not saying that marriage is the answer, but I am saying that 40 years with someone is a hell of lot more to show than a fat 401K.

Enjoying life is more important than toiling at a desk losing your eyesight to an IBM Word Processor. Meeting the people of Tuscany and picking fresh strawberry's and laughing with someone are the things that count.

Working...well, working is this thing you do along the way. But it can't be *the way.*

Am I making sense?

Maybe what I am doing is just not *my way.*

I need some time off. I need to get away.

Minute to minute now, I just feel like I am going to cry and when they ask me why, I will have no answer other than...Everything is wrong.

Where are the answers? What is my future? Will I be ok?

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